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Saskatchewan Lawyer News

Judge to hand decision on fatal hit and run February yet

Robert Duane Barisoff will have to wait a little longer to know how much time he will be spending in jail after he submitted a guilty plea to offences resulting to Kelton Desnomie's death.

The judge had decided to reserve his decision for February after hearing sentencing submissions of both the Crown and the defence.

Court heard that Barisoff was driving a jeep when he fatally hit an intoxicated Desnomie.

He stopped and someone went down to check on Desnomie. However, Barisoff drove off without checking or assisting the victim despite the protest of his companion.

Even though he left, Barisoff still surrendered and confessed to the police on the same day.

Barisoff was not drunk nor speeding but the Crown is asking that he be jailed for about a year and be banned from driving for two years because he had left the scene without any concern for Desnomie, who was 18 at the time of his death.

Regina lawyer Jeremy Ellergodt, Barisoff's defence counsel, said that his client had panicked which was why he left but he still regretted what he did.

The lawyer added that Barisoff only deserves a three-month jail stay and a driving ban of one year citing his client's surrender and confession.

Man admits to aggravated assault

Posted Nov 19, 2014 on cjme.com

Danton Cole McKay will be spending two years in jail less a day after submitting a guilty plea to aggravated assault.

McKay had admitted to stabbing a man several times after he saw him fighting with his sister. Court also heard that he was drunk during the incident.

McKay was able to plead guilty to a lesser charge because the stab wounds he inflicted on the victim were superficial, said Stinson.

The lawyer added that the victim also did not want to have anything to do with the case.

Prison sentence for woman who stabbed to death another woman

Posted Oct 31, 2014 on regina.ctvnews.ca

Melanie Bird received a sentence of 12 years in prison after she submitted a guilty plea to manslaughter for the death of Heather Lavallee in 2013.

Bird was initially facing a murder charge but she was allowed to plead guilty to manslaughter, which is a lesser charge.

It was clear that Bird was remorseful of what she did by admitting the offence to the police immediately and writing an apology letter as soon as she was apprehended.

Bird was intoxicated when she entered a home where Lavallee was at in search for pills.

The two women got into an argument which ended with Lavallee sustaining several stab wounds that led to her death.

Regina criminal lawyer James Struthers, defending for Bird, said that his client had turned to drugs and alcohol after her mother died.

The sentence was a joint recommendation by the Crown and defence but Bird will only spend a little less than 10 years behind bars after she was credited for time spent in remand.

Man gets prison for break and enter, assault

Posted Sep 16, 2014 on www.leaderpost.com

Terrance Dustyhorn has been meted with a prison sentence of five years for submitting a guilty plea to break, enter and commit assault with a weapon.

Dustyhorn together with Christopher Ahenakew had gone to the house of a man whom he believed was providing his lady friend with morphine.

Dustyhorn said that he had already warned the man about it but when he didn't take heed, he decided to go and confront the victim.

He had hit the victim with a machete and although police found the victim bloodied, his injuries were not that severe.

Regina defence lawyer Noah Evanchuk said Dustyhorn had no intention of really harming or maiming the victim considering that he is larger than him.

Aside from admitting his crime, Dustyhorn also cleared Ahenakew, saying he had nothing to do with it.

Ahenakew submitted a guilty plea to being unlawfully in a dwelling house and was handed a six-month sentence to be served in the community and a year probation.

Appeals Court lowers sentence for sexual assault convict

Posted Sep 12, 2014 on www.leaderpost.com

Konrad D. Dyck successfully appealed his 10-year sentence for admitting to aggravated sexual assault after the Appeals Court decided to lower it to a little more than five years.

Dyck was originally sentenced to nine years for brutally and humiliatingly raping a woman, who was 20 years old at the time the incident happened in 2011. And, another year for evading arrest and crashing his vehicle in the process.

He was left with eight years and a half to serve after the judge credited him for time served in custody.

However, the Appeals judge found the nine-year sentence for aggravated assault unfitting and lowered it to six years.

Although the one year for fleeing police was retained, after the credited time served, Dyck only has five years and one month to serve.

Canada Lawyer News

Vancouver lawyer overjoyed with decision against marijuana law

Vancouver lawyer Kirk Tousaw is very much pleased with Federal Court Judge Michael Phelan who decided that the law on marijuana is unconstitutional.

In his decision, Phelan said that not allowing medical users in getting marijuana from other than producers who are licensed is a violation of their charter rights.

Tousaw sees the decision as a milestone and a big boost for patients who are using cannabis as medication.

With the decision, the lawyer is urging Canada's Prime Minister to immediately stop criminally sanctioning patients using cannabis as a medicine, as well as those unlicensed providers.

According to Phelan, restricting the access did not lessen the risk to the patients' health nor did it make cannabis more accessible.

The judge, in his decision, called upon the Canadian government to make the marijuana law flexible so as to pave way for patients to grow their own marijuana for medical purposes.

Woman jailed for fraud amounting to about half a million dollars

Posted Jan 27, 2016 on www.edmontonsun.com

Holly Jean Cardinal was meted with a three-year prison term following her guilty plea of having stolen $260,000 from a veterinary clinic wherein she was working as an administrator.

However, the Guardian Veterinary Centre was not the only employer that the 54-year-old Cardinal stole from because while she was working there, she was also undergoing trial for having embezzled $296,000 from her previous employer, the Allen Services and Contracting Ltd, where she had been working as a bookkeeper for a long time.

The judge found it aggravating that Cardinal continued to commit fraud with her new employer while she was undergoing trial for the same crime she committed from her previous employer.

In fact, she had pleaded guilty to those charges on the day she was asked by the vet clinic to leave under the suspicion that she was stealing from them.

The vet office, however, could not nail her for embezzlement for lack of evidence.

Cardinal confessed to stealing from the vet clinic while she was serving her sentence for her first fraud conviction.

Walter Raponi, a criminal lawyer in Edmonton, said that Cardinal resorted to stealing from her employers after she turned to gambling following a relationship that became abusive.

Woman gets conditional sentence for faking own abduction

Posted Jun 17, 2015 on www.edmontonsun.com

Caitlin Rose Pare will be spending four months under house arrest as part of her one year conditional sentence after she submitted a guilty plea to public mischief.

The 25-year-old Pare was charged after she admitted to faking her own abduction to collect money from her family and boyfriend to pay off a drug debt.

Pare, who has a three-year-old daughter, got hooked on drugs after she became addicted to painkillers which were prescribed for her back injury.

After serving her conditional sentence, Pare will be made to undergo probation for a year and a half.

National defence expresses desire to settle sex assault claims

Posted Mar 16, 2015 on www.vicnews.com

London litigator Phillip Millar and lawyers of the Justice Department are working together after the Department of National Defence said it wanted to settle the claims made by eight women who alleged they were sexually assaulted by the department's medical technician.

According to the victims, they were subjected to a breast examination wherein they were touched inappropriately by James Wilks.

Wilks had denied the claims of the women and that he had done the examinations according to the standard procedure.

In 2013, several women including four of the five who have filed a claim, brought their complaints against Wilks in a court martial wherein he was convicted for several counts of breach of trust and sexual assault. The military judge gave his nod to proof that the victims, all under 40, did not have to undergo the breast examination.

He was sentenced to two years and six months which he hasn't started serving yet because he has appealed the conviction.

It was not the first time that Wilks has been convicted by a court martial because in 2011, he was also handed a nine-month sentence after he was convicted of charges of the same nature.

Millar said his clients are happy that the National Defence wants to go for a settlement.

Man convicted in 17 of 22 charges related to a shootout

Posted Mar 06, 2015 on www.castanet.net

Michael Edward Ellis has been convicted of several charges for his part in a police chase and shootout incident in July of 2012.

Ellis has submitted a not guilty plea to 22 charges in relation to the incident but he was found guilty in 17 of those charges.

During the incident, Ellis was identified as one of the three people whom police were chasing for an hour.

Among the charges Ellis was found guilty of were firearm charges. He was, however, acquitted of the charges related to murder.

In Ellis' defence, Victoria BC criminal lawyer John Gustafson told the court that his client's involvement in that incident was only forced. Even one of his companions testified as much.